Various surgical procedures are routinely carried out intravascularly or intraluminally. For example, in the treatment of vascular disease, such as arteriosclerosis, it is a common practice to invade the artery and insert an instrument (e.g., a balloon or other type of catheter) to carry out a procedure within the artery. Such procedures usually involve the percutaneous puncture of the artery so that an insertion sheath may be placed in the artery and thereafter instruments (e.g., catheters) may pass through the sheath to an operative position within the artery. Intravascular and intraluminal procedures unavoidably present the problem of stopping the bleeding at the percutaneous puncture after the procedure has been completed and after the instruments (and any insertion sheaths used therewith) have been removed. Bleeding from puncture sites, particularly in the case of femoral arterial punctures, is typically stopped by utilizing vascular closure devices, such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,090,130 and 6,045,569, which are hereby incorporated in their entireties by this reference.
Prior closure devices, such as the ones described in the above-mentioned patents, place an anchor inside the vessel to provide a backstop against which a sealing member that is positioned outside the vessel may be compressed. In some instances, a particular shaped insertion sheath is used to help position the anchor within the vessel and limit shuttling (return movement) of the anchor back into the insertion sheath. This insertion sheath may be structured different from the insertion sheath that is used for procedures related to treating the patient prior to sealing closed the vessel puncture with the vascular closure device. Requiring a sheath exchange as part of sealing closed the vessel puncture has many disadvantages.